RUNNING THE RIFT

Jean Patrick is a Tutsi being groomed by a Hutu coach to run for Rwanda in the Olympics. His times are good, but his timing is not. In 1994 the Hutu massacre 800,000 Tutsi. Once embraced by the president, our hero finds himself hiding in a banana tree while the Hutu below debate killing him with a grenade. Actor Marcel Davis also has much ground to cover. He must give voice to old men and young women, to the killers and the killed. While Davis does not create auditory identities for each character, it’s always clear who’s shrieking. The moral: Fictional differences between one person and another can justify violence too horrible to believe. Here one melodious voice can speak for us all. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2012]